1. Building Colonial Infrastructure
-By 1865 telegraph lines connected India to Europe
-Laying of railway lines were intended to facilitate European commercial exploitation of the colonies
-Railways and telegraphs allowed for the rapid mobilization of European troops, while urban street grids permitted the policing and surveillance of local populations
-British successfully segregated colonial Madras into European and Indian quarters and labeled them “White Town” and “Black Town”
2. The New Colonial Economy
-Gap between metrople and colony in late century
-Big European-run plantations
-British India became a major producer of opium, rice, indigo, tea, and above all, cotton
-Cochin-Chinese (Vietnamese) laborers worked the plantations of French Cambodia while tens of thousands of Indian and Chinese laborers known as “coolies” migrated to work in British possessions
-The construction of a vast railway network by indentured laborers from India made possible the British settlement of East Africa
3. Cultural Dimensions of Colonial Rule
-In late-nineteenth century British India colonial administrators and politicians reinforced divisions of caste
-Labeled the Gurkhas and the Sikhs as “martial” and considered them to be recruits for the British army
-Kallars were “criminal”
B. Methods of Governance
1. Brute Force: Exploitation in the Belgian Congo
-Belgian King Leopold II’s Congo Free State
-Had to produce rubber for the state
-Police responded by shooting recalcitrant
-The Belgian Parliament assumed control of the colony as a direct consequence of this international outcry
2. Indirect Rule in the British Empire
-System of “indirect rule”
-British administrators devised a relatively hands-off policy that largely delegated power to traditional chiefs, kings, and princes
-Granting unfettered power to traditional leaders, the British cleared the way for establishment of despotic regimes
-The Fulani Emirs who acted, as British agents in Nigeria were effectively dictators
-British promoted the tribal identity at the expense of other social affiliations and loyalties in colonial society
-Division and conflict along “tribal” or ethnic lines
3. Sustaining the Civilizing Mission in the French Empire
-French implemented a system of “direct rule” that unequivocally repudiated the authority of existing leaders and political institutions in favor of that of French officials, laws, and codes
-Reflected the French mission civilisatrice, its civilizing mission to assimilate the “native” to French culture
-French tradition of republicanism made these beliefs more central to French political identity and culture than they were elsewhere in Europe
-French philosophical and scientific tradition tended to emphasize the importance of environment in determining human development
-Biological determinism came later to France and carried less weight there than in other European nations
C. Non-Western Nationalisms
1. Characteristics of Colonial Nationalism
-Chinese nationalists privileged the majority Han as the “true” Chinese and denied equal status to other ethnic groups, such as the Tibetans and Mongols
-A group of nationalist reformers known as the Young Turks revolted against Ottoman rule in 1908, blaming both Sultan Abdul Hamid’s authoritarian regime and European intervention for the decline of Ottoman power
-Young Turks succeeded in establishing a constitutional government
-The Indian Rebellion targeted local Indian landholders and moneylenders and local colonial magistrates and police, rather than the British government in India
-Maji rebellion against Germans
D. Debating Empire: Imperial Politics in the Metropole
1. Imperialist Politicians and Parties
-Imperialism aided the political resurgence of the right
-Imperialism allowed conservative groups with their traditional base in the army, the Church, and the aristocracy to ally themselves with commercial interests in a program of popular appeal that promised prosperity and national glory
-In Britain, the conservative party, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli embraced empire in principle as well as in practice
-Snatched up shares in the Suez Canal from the indebted Khedive in a successful attempt to outmaneuver the French and secure British control over Egypt
-He conferred the title Empress of India on Queen Victoria, a gesture that captured the popular imagination
2. Critics of Empire
-Liberals rejected many of the techniques of imperial expansion, including the use of ambiguous treaties and the hasty reliance on force
-Liberal leader, William Gladstone, won the election of 1880 after campaigning against the immoral and un-Christian imperialist policies of the Conservatives and only supported imperial rule in the most lukewarm fashion
-Socialists presented the most consistent and vocal opposition to imperialism
-In Imperialism: A Study, the British liberal economist J.A. Hobson argued that imperialism emerged out of the inherent logic of industrial capitalism and its fundamentally unequal distribution of wealth
-Underconsumption caused by the low wages of industrial workers and the excess savings of the wealthy created insufficient aggregate demand on the domestic economy, and profit-seeking capitalists therefore turned to new markets overseas as a more profitable setting in which to invest their surplus capital
-In Imperialism: The Last Stage of Capitalism, Lenin elaborated by inking imperialism specifically to the advent of monopoly capitalism, a new and more advanced phase of capitalist development in which financial rather than industrial capital propelled the European economy
-For Lenin, imperialism represented capitalism in highest and most parasitic stage
E. The Effects of Imperialism on European Society
1. Europeans in the Empire
-Peasants and villagers revered the District Collector (tax collector) in India as a minor raja or deity
-With the opening of the Suez Canal, the introduction of faster steamships, and the expansion of colonial networks, European women also appeared on the imperial scene in new numbers
A. The Reordering of Colonial Life
1. Building Colonial Infrastructure
-By 1865 telegraph lines connected India to Europe
-Laying of railway lines were intended to facilitate European commercial exploitation of the colonies
-Railways and telegraphs allowed for the rapid mobilization of European troops, while urban street grids permitted the policing and surveillance of local populations
-British successfully segregated colonial Madras into European and Indian quarters and labeled them “White Town” and “Black Town”
2. The New Colonial Economy
-Gap between metrople and colony in late century
-Big European-run plantations
-British India became a major producer of opium, rice, indigo, tea, and above all, cotton
-Cochin-Chinese (Vietnamese) laborers worked the plantations of French Cambodia while tens of thousands of Indian and Chinese laborers known as “coolies” migrated to work in British possessions
-The construction of a vast railway network by indentured laborers from India made possible the British settlement of East Africa
3. Cultural Dimensions of Colonial Rule
-In late-nineteenth century British India colonial administrators and politicians reinforced divisions of caste
-Labeled the Gurkhas and the Sikhs as “martial” and considered them to be recruits for the British army
-Kallars were “criminal”
B. Methods of Governance
1. Brute Force: Exploitation in the Belgian Congo
-Belgian King Leopold II’s Congo Free State
-Had to produce rubber for the state
-Police responded by shooting recalcitrant
-The Belgian Parliament assumed control of the colony as a direct consequence of this international outcry
2. Indirect Rule in the British Empire
-System of “indirect rule”
-British administrators devised a relatively hands-off policy that largely delegated power to traditional chiefs, kings, and princes
-Granting unfettered power to traditional leaders, the British cleared the way for establishment of despotic regimes
-The Fulani Emirs who acted, as British agents in Nigeria were effectively dictators
-British promoted the tribal identity at the expense of other social affiliations and loyalties in colonial society
-Division and conflict along “tribal” or ethnic lines
3. Sustaining the Civilizing Mission in the French Empire
-French implemented a system of “direct rule” that unequivocally repudiated the authority of existing leaders and political institutions in favor of that of French officials, laws, and codes
-Reflected the French mission civilisatrice, its civilizing mission to assimilate the “native” to French culture
-French tradition of republicanism made these beliefs more central to French political identity and culture than they were elsewhere in Europe
-French philosophical and scientific tradition tended to emphasize the importance of environment in determining human development
-Biological determinism came later to France and carried less weight there than in other European nations
C. Non-Western Nationalisms
1. Characteristics of Colonial Nationalism
-Chinese nationalists privileged the majority Han as the “true” Chinese and denied equal status to other ethnic groups, such as the Tibetans and Mongols
-A group of nationalist reformers known as the Young Turks revolted against Ottoman rule in 1908, blaming both Sultan Abdul Hamid’s authoritarian regime and European intervention for the decline of Ottoman power
-Young Turks succeeded in establishing a constitutional government
-The Indian Rebellion targeted local Indian landholders and moneylenders and local colonial magistrates and police, rather than the British government in India
-Maji rebellion against Germans
D. Debating Empire: Imperial Politics in the Metropole
1. Imperialist Politicians and Parties
-Imperialism aided the political resurgence of the right
-Imperialism allowed conservative groups with their traditional base in the army, the Church, and the aristocracy to ally themselves with commercial interests in a program of popular appeal that promised prosperity and national glory
-In Britain, the conservative party, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli embraced empire in principle as well as in practice
-Snatched up shares in the Suez Canal from the indebted Khedive in a successful attempt to outmaneuver the French and secure British control over Egypt
-He conferred the title Empress of India on Queen Victoria, a gesture that captured the popular imagination
2. Critics of Empire
-Liberals rejected many of the techniques of imperial expansion, including the use of ambiguous treaties and the hasty reliance on force
-Liberal leader, William Gladstone, won the election of 1880 after campaigning against the immoral and un-Christian imperialist policies of the Conservatives and only supported imperial rule in the most lukewarm fashion
-Socialists presented the most consistent and vocal opposition to imperialism
-In Imperialism: A Study, the British liberal economist J.A. Hobson argued that imperialism emerged out of the inherent logic of industrial capitalism and its fundamentally unequal distribution of wealth
-Underconsumption caused by the low wages of industrial workers and the excess savings of the wealthy created insufficient aggregate demand on the domestic economy, and profit-seeking capitalists therefore turned to new markets overseas as a more profitable setting in which to invest their surplus capital
-In Imperialism: The Last Stage of Capitalism, Lenin elaborated by inking imperialism specifically to the advent of monopoly capitalism, a new and more advanced phase of capitalist development in which financial rather than industrial capital propelled the European economy
-For Lenin, imperialism represented capitalism in highest and most parasitic stage
E. The Effects of Imperialism on European Society
1. Europeans in the Empire
-Peasants and villagers revered the District Collector (tax collector) in India as a minor raja or deity
-With the opening of the Suez Canal, the introduction of faster steamships, and the expansion of colonial networks, European women also appeared on the imperial scene in new numbers